Every Second

70

Coyote Mountains, New York

What can I do now?

Lori’s heart pounded like a jackhammer; panic burned through her mind.

Yes, she’d bought time, but she was losing it every second as they marched her back through the forest at gunpoint. Her brain roared at her to do something, anything, to save them.

I have no options. I have nothing.

Locating the tree was not easy. The woods looked different to her traveling in this direction.

Oh God, what if I can’t find it?

Each time she stopped to cope with indecision on which way to go, Jerricko jabbed her with his gun.

“Stop wasting time!”

The faraway sound of a helicopter faded in and out, like a distant dream. Whenever Lori paused to look skyward he prodded her with his gun.

“Stop stalling!”

She’d stumbled over outcroppings and stepped through twisted masses of fallen trees as she led them back through the area where she and Billy had hidden. Vic and Jerricko grew impatient each time they heard the intermittent whump of a helicopter.

But Lori grew hopeful.

Please, find us! Please!

They came to a dense, terraced section. Lori spotted a patch of white on the forked-branched maple tree where she’d stripped a piece of bark.

“This is it.”

She bent down to the rock heap at the base of the tree, reached into it and pulled out the laptop. Vic took it from her, sat down and quickly browsed through its folders. Satisfied everything was intact, he slid it into his backpack, stood and pointed his gun at Lori.

They started back.

Billy’s shoulders rose and fell as he cried, sitting on a rock, his hands bound behind his back.

Cutty and Percy stood near him, their guns strapped over their shoulders.

Lori’s heart quavered as she was escorted back along the cliff above the river. Over the water’s rush, fear throbbed in her ears.

She knew what was coming.

They’re going to behead us!

At twenty yards out, panic prickled Lori’s scalp, and her knees nearly buckled. Video images flashed before her of the British aid worker on her knees, her captor clad in black, her exposed throat, the glint of the knife. The horror of Billy’s impending death consumed Lori like an inferno and suddenly she was on the street in Santa Ana covered with Tim’s blood. Then she saw Dan in his last moments, fighting back, saving them-I’ll be right behind you!-before they shot him.

Ten yards away, every vein in Lori’s body felt ready to burst. Her eyes bulged as she scanned their captors. Vic sat down to work on the laptop while Jerricko searched his backpack, pulling out a bottle of water.

Lori smiled at Billy as she approached him, her voice trembling.

“It’ll be okay, sweetie.”

Cutty positioned her next to her son. Percy, who stood guard, yawned and was not fully attentive as she surrendered her left hand behind her back. As Cutty began to bind her, Lori’s mind still blazed with… Tim’s blood… I’ll be right behind you…they’re going to kill us now…nothing left but to fight for our lives…and she exploded with lightning fury.

She pivoted and with all her might drove her right fist into Cutty’s face. Before Percy could react, she plowed her fist hard into his groin. Then she grabbed Billy and rushed with him to the cliff side, jumping into the river twenty feet below.

As they fell everything whirred in slow motion.

Their captors cursed and let off a spurt of gunfire that missed while Lori prayed the water would be deep enough to survive.

The river swallowed them with an icy splash. They plunged to a muddy spot at the bottom. Lori held Billy, kicking until her feet found traction, thrusting them downstream underwater with the current as bullet tracks bubbled around them.

It took all of her strength to hold Billy, whose hands were still bound. She surfaced for air as bullets ricocheted on rocks. The killers were firing down on them while running atop the rugged treacherous terrain; its rocky walls reached some twenty feet up along the twisting river.

Lori worked hard to keep above the surface, so Billy could breathe, at the same time she had to avoid being slammed into jagged formations.

At first she thought Billy had banged his leg against a rock.

But Lori soon realized from the blood wafting in the water around him that he’d been shot. His face was white but his eyes were open. He was breathing. His wound was on the right side of his stomach.

They were floating too fast with the current for her to tend to him or pull them out. Electricity suddenly shot through her arm. She raised it and saw that a two-inch chunk of flesh, exposing bloodied tendons, was gone from the meaty part of her forearm.

She’d been shot.

Blood oozed from her wound.

As the distance between them and the killers grew Lori looked downstream for a sanctuary. But her vision was blurring, her strength waning as she battled to keep Billy and herself alive.